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[MER // syntax&semantics!;]
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| The high road, low road, our road |
[08 May 2008|10:51am] |
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mood |
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music |
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Algernon Cadwallader // "Katie's Conscious" |
] |
Cornerstones built from the backlashes of rebellion. There's bloodshed, rape, destruction of the castle walls. Volcanic deposits climbing to the top of hills. Hours of climbing over thousands of feet of exploded shrapnel, shattered caskets. And then there are the colors that fly from the top of our arms: the lions, the roses, the thistles, the eyes that are our home.
There are many ways that I can and cannot imagine my life, and it's starting to become that the image of this country, this continent, becomes permanently wedged in the grandiose sketch that my mind and my camera constantly construct. I don't think I've ever gone through such an intense amount of change in such a short period of time; a well of emotion, sex, life twists, career realisations. It's not to say that I'm in a better place than in which I started, and probably not a more sorted place, but there are lessons that have been learned, priorities that have become more clear, and faces that, no matter where I travel, have continued to weave through my dreams. Some of the past continues to haunt, some of the future continues to scares, some of the present continues to bind. I haven't a clue in what direction I am next to head, but I've realised a few things about self, sacrifice, and mostly loyalty to the one whose opinion on my own passions I must heed most: my own.
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| We exist |
[01 Jan 2008|10:57pm] |
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mood |
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anxious |
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music |
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Mazzy Star // "Five String Serenade" |
] |
Ghosts exist.
It's a simply thing, really. People just choose to ignore them. They're captive in footprints, outlined on bedsheets, clinging in repetition as DNA in bone, hair, skin. Ghosts of past, which are really ghosts of present, which are only ghosts of future. We're our own ghosts: our waking soldiers, walking enemies, hiding allies strewn about battlefields, torn limbs sandwiched between the shredded steel of car crashes and the perfect pressed seams of wedding dresses. We are past, present, future. And we can forget, but we simply won't.
From here on out, everything changes. There are a million ways to declare that you're going to change your mind, change your outlook, change your body, change something, but when the power is in someone else's hands putting a knife to you - a literal one - there's no turning back.
I'm excited. What this will mean is more than a new body shape, but hopefully a new control on myself, my disease, the way I view and present myself. Because really, when it comes down to it, I have no New Year's diatribe, no list of revelations and reflections, resolutions and reinventions. I'm talented, brilliant, dynamic, and my life is full of outrageous people that bring me unparalleled happiness. No year (month, day, whatever) is going to be perfect, just like no person, life, relationship, anything will be. But if there is anything that I've learned this year, and anything that will help me shape an outlook going into the new adventure, I know that I need to take some time to care about myself a little more; to stop, think, and not let the demons take over.
Here's to a new breath (that doesn't forget the remnants of old ones who never failed to cleanse).
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| Fourteen slabs of broken city sidewalk |
[23 Oct 2007|05:40pm] |
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music |
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Prinzhorn Dance School // "Up! Up! Up!" |
] |
Nights spent on a diary-driven rollercoaster ride, you ignite dreams and chills with a palpable security, and a longing that's been lodged into me for measurements and numbers that I simply can't recount. (For fear of relapse, for fear of rebirth?) I'm a tick-tock steady rhythm in your ribcage that jumps when you least expect it, fills you with the doubt and certainty that's been lodged into you for measurements and numbers that you simply can't recount. (For fear of life, for fear of death?)
I am the roses pressed into your book of wonder. You are the spine that decides to bind or give way.
It's a strange thing when all of the intangibles begin their convergence on one extremely living, breathing, glowing amalgamation of real. For one of the first times in my life, the things that seemed like permanent uncomfortable nuances are becoming real. Enrollment in my Scottish uni is confirmed and booked. My waist and legs are shrinking visibly. The surgery is moving forward. I am a published photographer. And strangest, I will see him through other means than photos and visions once again.
Sometimes my nerves jump for the pure reason that I'm used to being unhappy with certain things, but dream is coming reality. I will always be scared of failure, of things that I, perhaps, am not, and things that I cannot do. Even sometimes from means that I cannot control. But there's a strangely real and surprisingly not daunting rush that comes with each tick of the calendar, both day by day and year by year.
I see myself growing into a serious, strong woman every day. And I have faith in it all.
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| Putting today on hold to say hello to yesterday |
[25 Sep 2007|09:17am] |
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mood |
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uncomfortable |
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music |
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Wire // "Mr. Suit" |
] |
What does it take to be a poet? To have the deepest of emotional foundations touched with the same prowess of a metaphysical connection? Is it a universality across sonnet, epic, haiku, free verse that creates a language understood no matter your native tongue? Is it unabashed lyricism and the ability to create something out of only devices and rhetoric? Or is it understanding that no matter how you mask in metaphors, there is always someone who can reach below the surface?
Things are insane in many ways. Some good insane, some otherwise.
I haven't been sleeping because I can't come to peace with a lot of my thoughts and a lot of the questions in my head. I have a deep aching to be back in Brooklyn, in New York, under the care of street signs and strangers that will protect me when I swim out a little too far.
I'm starting to view (and fear) the future in a way I never have before, wondering if I can really handle it when the competition gets tough. I'm used to succeeding at everything far beyond my wildest dreams. But what happens when I'm surrounded only by those people? Can I deal with not being on top? It scares the life out of me. Do I want to spend my days in a hospital or a lab, or poised behind a computer screen like I always envisioned?
Don't unravel.
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| A magical timepiece |
[03 Aug 2007|01:36pm] |
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music |
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Moving Mountains // "Ode We Will Bury Ourselves" |
] |
I can remember the time where my heartbeat etched its own identity into a postal box, breathing numbers and fantasies onto paper like zip codes onto envelopes. Where addresses and milestones acted succinctly onto a vision of time, limitations and paper airplanes were more intangible than the notion of the universe. Where did we find the direction with which to ground ourselves, absorb the notions of the right, of the necessary? I want the childish innocence; no borders between states, countries, continents and the expansive imagination to slay the dragon, suppress the two letter word that spirals us back to reality.
It's been a while. The good, the bad, and the ugly:
Good: I'm still glowing, still reading, still writing, still living, still breathing. I finished up at WWD and DNR with incredible success. I made amazing connections, learned excellent lessons, and even became fluent in HTML to rebuild the Melisma site (that'll see an even more expansive relaunch soon). I also started at Insound for the duration of the summer. It's wonderful and therapeutic.
Bad: Leaving Brooklyn. Dear god, it's my home.
Ugly: I'm relapsing again. I can feel it every time I stare down the things that haunt me, and the humor and openness with which I used to play it off has now become a shield for my insecurity. I am trying to start taking control now, so by the time I get to Boston and can go back to Cambridge for help, I can be in a better place. The light at the end of the tunnel is that I want it more than ever, I just need a swift kick again.
Here's to hopes of one more spectacular month, despite the messy undercurrents.
//x And we'll bury ourselves in the ground, hallelujah. And I'm in the earth and you're in the sky, hallelujah. And nothing can change what you are, hallelujah. And someday the, the trees will sing...
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| Moving sidewalks |
[22 Jun 2007|10:19am] |
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I Hate Myself // “Conversations with Dr. Seussicide” |
] |
I breathe in 3/4, but think in a time signature that's off the charts, sending vibrations through bundles of nerves, which vibrate my vocal chords in lucky patterns. There's a fountain spouting the wisdom of ages, and I get to fill it up with my own water when I take gallons to help me digest the currents in my organs. It's stroking inside of me, whitewashing kidney to liver to ribcage, refinishing, refining.
Short and sweet, head to toe.
It's sort of strange to come back to this page after more than a month. Things are almost as different as they possibly could be.
Life in Brooklyn is all I dreamed of and more. It's funny thinking about the hopes you had as a child materializing, and I'm lucky enough to feel them under my feet every morning when I walk out to work. Brooklyn is the neighborhood that I always wanted with the New York beat I can't live without. I'm connecting with people, with streets, and with the packed subway cars that smush me to bits during each commute. I have blisters on my feet for miles.
Work is larger than life. I'm succeeding, soaring, and learning more about the business and web development than I knew I could. I am so grateful for this opportunity, and sometimes blink, not believing this is my life.
Much of my free time has been spent working on my book. It's really going somewhere, I think; I've never been so in love with a character created by my own hands. He's brilliant, quick, snarky, despicable, and so intriguing that it's disturbing. We'll see where this all goes.
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| And justice for all |
[10 May 2007|12:56pm] |
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mood |
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reflective |
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music |
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Moving Mountains // "Alastika" |
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The strings of my memory have gone crawling across breaking waves, building sandbars, scaling the back country roads, and walked down crowded city streets where the sun is so high, I could only hear my footsteps and the beat of my heart pulsing from my temples to my clavicles. The shape of a skyline is tattooed around my ankles like the most exquisite fetters, chaining me to the rhythm of the sandstorms, the mood cycle, tracing my body like horizon outlines. I can finally see a reflection in wading pools, outlines of storylines tangible like my soul inside my chest, my cacophonous laughter that starts from the soles of my shoes and climbs through my body like a whisper tickling the marrow of my bones.
I'm sitting here in this shell of a room, a lonely, cold chamber of white walls and stark wooden furniture whose livelihood has been stripped away and packed neatly in the back of my car. So strange to think that this is the last time I'll be in this room where I've built a life for the last nine moths; nothing has changed for me more than this year. A shift in perspective, a new set of interests, a sure direction, new comfortable hands on my skin, but most of all, the will to change and augment that which has been plaguing me. Sure, I'm still in the process, but it's a remarkable progression from where I began. I'm starting to know every crevice of myself like I know every crevice of this room. And here we go again on a brand new adventure, new skies, new faces, and hopefully I can keep running in the direction that I want to, perhaps even picking up the pace. You're all really, really beautiful.
See you in Brooklyn.
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| Augmented demonstratives |
[06 Apr 2007|08:37pm] |
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Battles // "Ddiamondd" |
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The silhouettes when we raise ourselves from the veil project the narratives of my curves onto walls illuminated by singing streetlights, a fuzzy glow like the warmest embers. Delicate imprints romance six string serenades painted like violin carvings across my skin; treble clefs run wild across vast expanses of flesh and soul. There's a burning beneath the street, below the subway lines, held tighter than the warmest notions on the coldest days. Eyelids raise not out of natural instinct, but delicate volition. Poetry against the asphalt: a plush grip instead of sandpaper touch.
There are few things more refreshing than feeling inspired and captivated by the direction your life has taken, the path you've carved out for yourself. But more than that, to simply be excited - it's poetic. To say the least, things have been going well.
I've secured my summer; I've landed an internship with Insound and a paid position with Conde Nast, specifically in the Fairchild Fashion Group. Unreal and stellar. The kicker? An apartment off of Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg. To be independent, living on my own, twenty years old in Brooklyn? It's everything I've ever wanted. I can't wait to get back to New York and live the life for which I've been dying. What's brilliant is that I know I've accomplished it on my own.
Things in Boston have been incredible. Within the last week, I put on two shows; Meneguar, Ampere, and They and the Children on Saturday, and Sinaloa, HTML, Relics, Furnace and the One AM Radio last night. It feels poetic at the core to be able to support the DIY network. Watching bands play who have substance to them and a genuine ethos crawling through their skin - it's so real. And knowing that it means something to the kids and the bands makes me even more excited that I can do it.
I love my perch and the view for miles to come.
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| A coat of Hope Diamond shine |
[05 Mar 2007|09:03am] |
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peaceful |
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Hot Cross // "Turncoat Revolution" |
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I dig beaten paths with my shaking hands, tremors from the inside out of a heartbeat pace and a nervous pulse weaving through the fibers of my own networks. Rewrite, evolve, but don't erase; I'll bear my outline into these dirt roads with every footprint I leave on the first dusting of snow, coat of serenity that falls around like ground up diamonds dripping from my eyelids. Strands of hair are like gemstone patchwork and fingerprints are just the maps we must learn to use to fit the pieces back together. Here's a treasure chest breathing below the sand.
Birthday, version 20.0.
For the most part, in my eyes, age has generally always been simply a number. Sure, it constrains certain places you can enter, things you can do, and sometimes the course which your life must take for a frame in time. But I have always conducted myself outside of the age box, and associated with people whose numbers I didn't care about, and who didn't care about mine. It's been nice. Sifting through memories of the year, it's nice to look back on how I've grown, and not how the number has affected me. I can't pinpoint a single year during which more has happened to me. Love, loss, life, interests, friends, ambitions, accomplishments. For once, I can really say I'm proud of what I've done and who I've become. I know I've changed - both consciously and completely outside of my volition - and I will admit I'm still figuring it out. I don't know if what I'm going through in my head is simply a stage, a reaction, or if I've really morphed inside. It'll be interesting to grow and flourish.
C'est la vie.
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| Synaptic retribution |
[28 Feb 2007|11:06am] |
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Songs:Ohia // "Lioness" |
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I'll stroke the fibers of your corpus callosum waiting for these synaptic fibers to ignite and shake you to the core. Can't you tell that we're all electric jolts? Hidden in a neural network, pitying the bloodstream and the tissue fibers as we're shooting through these paths with speed that breaks sound barriers and a toughness harder than diamonds. Take a left-brain photograph and turn me inside out for a journey to the right; jumping from node to node of Ranvier, I'm leaving my imprint on every bundle of nerves like a child on edge. And before you know it, I'm gone, shooting through your seas of fluid, igniting your command centers, and unrolling a scroll of parchment like I'm tattooing your soul.
I have been discovering that the parallel worlds into which I have been so readily diving into are those of the stories I create. It's been interesting to examine my moods following the spurts during which I am tethered unendingly to my canvases, typing fiction faster than my lungs can process oxygen, and often, faster than my synapses can even handle ideas. I immerse myself in the characters' worlds - my heart weighs heavily like Tegan's, seeks comfort in Chase's words, and I seem to get my mind lost in Dallas' eyes, just as she finds herself doing over and over again. I find myself annoyed by Tim's naivety, strangely offset by the fact that Adam must know exactly what's going through my head, and resentful of Sebastian's actions, even though he doesn't know I know. It's simply another dimension in which I can feel so completely free to create. I suppose, from this, even though my moods have been altered in ways that cause me to carry a heavy burden (hopefully in the future I'll endeavor a few lighter subjects), I am invigorated by the prospect of my ability to paint vivid landscapes and develop storylines in which it is easy to get absolutely lost. The entire notion is daunting. And absoultely brilliant.
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| How you saved my life |
[24 Feb 2007|09:03am] |
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heart. |
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It plays in vivid a scene in my head. |
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It was someone else's poetry, not my own, whose harmonic tremors made hearts sync up for seconds which turned into minutes which turned into hours which turned into days which turned into months which turned into years which have now fastened memories to the rest of my life.
I don't care about this comes out or whose eyes run over it, judge me. I miss him. I miss so deeply. I still love his eyes, his smile, his laugh, his sense of humor. The way it felt like he really cared, like I was the only one in his world. And for this frame of time, the days that bled into nights, I really was. The way my tears felt meaningful, the way my heart jumped just to know he was alive. I don't know if it's sad or what it is that I still feel like that about him. About every part of him that touched me so deeply, in places I didn't know I could be reached. How he built my character with me from the ground up with care, precision, and often selflessness. How he nurtured my soul. It's not your fault that it fell apart. I hate myself for all the ways I could have treated him better, all the things I shouldn't have said and all the things I wish I had said in their place. And I never meant to be angry at myself because time was always a better culprit, but one of the things he gave me is a deeper look into myself and a desire to stop trying to make excuses for the flaws. Those stories we wrote are still how I picture it. I still love him with the same intensity as the first day he held me in an airport terminal, dizzy from apprehension and drenched from humidity. And I didn't think today would hurt so badly. I didn't think that I'd still have scars on my organs six months later. And I look back on those days we lived together and those nights where we melted into each other and my heart warms the rest of my body. These are days like no other. And I wish that I didn't want him to be the one to cover the scars still, but it breaks my heart that he is and I can't.
And I wish you, wish you could still feel what burns inside of me like you used to, how badly I want it, how I'd give anything, just to be there to fill the hole I've carelessly torn into you. But it's the love I shared with you that keeps something alive.
After we flew across the country we
got in bed, laid our bodies
delicately together, like maps laid
face to face, East to West...
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| Restless restarts |
[06 Feb 2007|06:40pm] |
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Anchor & Braille // "Wedding/Funeral" |
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She found herself alive despite the massive chaos around her. The sky was cluttered with clouds, allowing only a small beam of light to permeate the thick cover. It splashed onto the ground before her, piercing the tufts of grass where a flower once stood. It longed to regrow, to surround itself with the thickest, most lush field of green in which it could possibly stand. She touched her own skin, fingering the series of goosebumps raised over the expanse of her canvas - her own grassy knoll. There was a pulse underneath the ashes that tinted her complexion. She brushed away the residue, half to cleanse, and half to remind herself she still could.
Existing in the throws of another bout of semi-existential tumult is repeatedly wearing out its welcome. It is not to say that I am lost, but rather in rearranging my priorities, efforts, and ruminations (I should embrace that they are more fittingly called "unwelcome obsessions") I lack the orientation of my own substance, grounding me to my person. I feel in my bones that I'm ready for something again, something big, and can only hope that it exists on the horizon to help me like some sort of tangible sentence in whose words I can cozy up and lay peacefully, tracing their boundaries with my new familiarity. Time is no longer of the essence, and it's nice to be able to feel like I can spend time reconstructing myself, hoping with this the demons are slain and the heroes and heroines find life from their ashes. I'm looking for days to perpetuate themselves like my prose - lyrically and fully. But are my measures too exacting, even for the most determined eyes?
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| The impact of the earth's revolution |
[23 Jan 2007|06:39pm] |
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mood |
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Black Eyes // "Deformative" |
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Evolution, building from the ground up, flourishing the natural breadth of our own human capabilities. One set of footsteps creating a larger outline than the prints that saw landfall before it, scratching out some type of history carved into the sand. Historians can only hope for fossils pressed into the sides of mountains, or some genetic key in the shape that fits. It travels out one side of the aorta, pumping these codes and sequences into our insides, twisting in the locks of the deepest DNA. It allows us to change, to grow, to rearrange our bone structure from the inside out. Anatomy - the simplest building blocks of the most complex creatures who were once merely ideas.
The idea that it's real is sobering. That it wreaks of some type of permanence. That I can touch without fear, but even so, my body can't stand the idea of pulling someone else close or hearing those words from any other voice but his. I've always known that it was slipping, falling fast, but in those times of desperation, there were always those cobwebs in the corner, drizzled with a little bit of dew and hope, that I could hang onto without fear of them breaking. It's frightening to know that I've developed so many complexes from everything that's happened. That my emotions have been so augmented, that the piece inside of me which makes me dynamic in love has locked itself away in a box and rendered me almost inept or defunct or...something. And it shakes my foundation to know that, now that the majority of my life is in order, my attitude is anew and I feel almost fearless, feel essentially blissful, that this gaping hole remains in my canvas and my character. I do not lie when I say I am happy in most ways. I feel awake to the world in a way I haven't for a while. Why does this piece refuse to follow?
Lequel est plus fort: la raison, le temps, ou l'amour?
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| Shackles on the steeples |
[18 Jan 2007|02:54pm] |
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Meneguar // "Bury A Flower" |
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Scars on the wrists of hummingbirds are carved out by the pieces of stained glass that litters the ground. When the church was desecrated, the explosions sent the images of heroes and martyrs crashing to the concrete, rearranging their stories, punctuating new sentences with a vivid spectrum of colors. Lascivious tales bleed from cuts marked by sharper edges. There are now sins instead of solder, screams in the place of gospel. And the "Good Lord" is now simply a "Good Grief" paired with a sigh that says you're lucky to be alive.
With each day that passes, it becomes clearer and clearer what the "shoulds" and the "realities" of my situation are. Bottom line is that I need to let go. I'm never going to regain what I've been chasing, and my mind is starting to blur idealism with genuine memories. Sentiment is collapsing onto itself, along with hopes, expectations, and the general sense that I'm grounded. It's been replaced with a tenuous perspective, and I'm starting to hurt. I hate that it is so blinding and irresolute. But what I hate more is the unfailing permanence of it all, and more of the words that are not being exchanged. I say I should let go, but I suppose that's been the case for months now.
More debilitating, though, is the same self-judgment being pushed to the surface again. Since I've been back at Tufts, the ghosts have returned, both through thought and action. I wish I could just stop. Stop the judgment, stop the self-harm, come to terms with the person I am and break the bones of the skeletons in the closet. But I can't do that; I'm too uncomfortable in my own skin. And now I am truly being pulled apart by concrete action, not just the ideas I've created about them. They can't blame it on my conceptions when rejection takes breath from my own chest.
I wish I had the strength to take the plunge and murder - in the least healthy way - what plagues me. I never want anyone to lie to me about beauty ever again or try and "adjust" my view of reality. I'm too smart for that.
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| The treble frequencies: four steps for every two heartbeats |
[31 Dec 2006|07:38pm] |
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65daysofstatic // "Retreat! Retreat!" |
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Let it unfold like a locket. No need for a lock and key, just a concrete picture of finite contours depicted in a permanent silhouette when the lights go low. No equivocations on its shape, just the reality of form, reflection, dimension. But we're fooling ourselves if we dismiss the mystery surrounding it; the questions abound like waves from the core. Its weather, its history, and what it keeps at its nucleus - the keepers of the answers are few, and we're scarcely privileged enough to be on the inside of its secret society quest, but always longing to be the secret it contains. We think we pry for the answers, but simply arouse further questions of identity, purpose, existence. It seems every action upon morphing into a reaction emerges from its chrysalis white and anew; ideas never sully until they have a past, but no purpose for the future.
I suppose I'm a little hesitant to layout for myself a set of expectations and resolutions for the coming year. I know it's almost solely in virtue of that which I've learned this year, which is that things always change, no matter what your circumstances are. Sure there are things on which I can reflect. My entire life has changed from the way I see myself, with whom my heart lies, the frequencies coming from my speakers to my acquaintances, conduct, and ethics. But simply, it's always unfolding. There's no need to put the period on a sentence which is still acquiring characters and entire words. I have my demons and I have my martyrs.
What does it come down to? I'll never stop learning, growing, or doing. Finding confidence deep within yourself...simply put, there's nothing like it. I never have to worry about what I will become, even if, for a moment, I recoil with fear that I don't know who I am. Someone important once told me that I'll never be able to control someone else's actions, only my reactions. I don't think I've ever quite seen it realized like this before. As for me, I know the things of which I am capable, and the people who I am lucky to be able to hold dear. That's enough to fuel the fire of another year, or even an entire lifetime.
//x A lingua franca of heroes and villains...
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| Fashion a noose to hang the jury |
[21 Dec 2006|10:32pm] |
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curious |
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music |
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Christians & Lions // "Skinny Fists" |
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I think I've walked the streets in wiser shoes, in soles which my sidewalk knows better. I think I've traveled smarter paths, traversed kinder foothills, tread water in friendlier oceans. I think my gaze has weathered deeper expansions, with one star brighter than the last and one song more harmonious than every one before it. I think I've broken bigger hearts, been touched in softer places, left more coquettish reminders on the tips of others' lips. I think I've brushed shoulders with more important faces, and recorded longer names in the little black book over which my fingers anxiously run; territory I'm beginning to know in the same way that my ink can read my mind and my pencil grip echos the expanse of my thesaurus. And I'm starting to wonder whether the past shapes the present or whether reflections in the present reform the past.
I'm home in New York. The semester has been an absolute blur. I don't think I've ever been happier and simultaneously in so deep. And, upon returning home, the rush and the buzz hasn't appeared to subside - not yet, at least.
Tonight on the drive, with my iPod on shuffle, I heard the song for the first time since August. Nothing in me could bring me to turn it off. I tried desperately not to break down, but didn't make it into the second bar of the first verse before feeling my chest tighten and my eyes well up. It gets me wondering about the hole in my heart. There is no doubt that it is there, but am I searching now to fill the hole? If so, how do I expect to fill it? Is he the only one who can do that? Is there a way to circumnavigate it and still feel whole? It's a cumbersome load to ingest, and every time I ask a question, I can feel a pang drive deeper into my chest. It's like the feeling of choking, but the catch is that I'm standing here breathing better than ever, so where do I find the answers? Sometimes I'm scared that I push too much for being nineteen, but I don't think I would be satisfied if my head and heart weren't filled with questions. The important part, I think, is that I'm taking the action to find their solutions - or at best quench the curiosity. For now, at least.
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| Bodies collide |
[08 Dec 2006|08:19pm] |
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mood |
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you know, existing |
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music |
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Antioch Arrow // "Antioch Gold" |
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Think by the clock, fuck like clockwork. It's a race against time and the semantics of your endeavors. Your syntax affords for only one interpretation, but if you keep prodding at the words, there's a possibility that your concepts will twist and bend into a bridge between the colloquial and the confidential, resting the weight of each night, each thought at the bow of the arch. Make sure the glue will hold because the pressure is high. Think fast, fuck faster. It's like a battle between brains and brawn, common sense and the non-sensical, all collected neatly under the arch of your foot, waiting for the final stomp to put a head on the quickfire action. There's a starting and a stopping point, an explanation for every misgiving, an emotional motivational cathartic interpretation for the truth conditions of these nights, like future plans drawn into sand with fingertips, or stars stolen from the skyline and rearranged your singularly intelligible semiotics. There's always the raw passion of the game and the judgment from the powers that be, so dig deeper. Think harder, fuck harder. Be bolder, be broader.
How do you not get upset at being told that you're different? How do you know that something in your head is amiss? How do you know when it's the right time to seek help? How do you know how self-aware you really are, and where the line between your cognizant reality and delusion is? How do you know which questions are the right to ask? How do deal with realizations in a healthy way? How do you exist in an alien environment without feeling like a stranger? How do you know the difference between a preoccupation and an obsession? How do you know if the direction you know is right? How do you break the news? How do you not run away? How do you even know if you're asking the right questions?
For once in my life, I think I'm scared.
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| Coastal ruminations of lost but not forgotten |
[18 Nov 2006|08:15pm] |
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quixotic |
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Big Black // "Kerosene" |
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Who is the keeper of the clock towers, the bells in the church that reside at the top of every steeple, meant to be the indicators to the passage of sunlight, the morphing of biological ticktock musings, and the measure by which we undress, unwind, and unveil self and solace? I feel like the silhouettes burned into the brick buildings by the catharsis, forever immortalized by the remnant of a memory, desperately itching to bring meaning and presence full circle to a view I'll understand and not have to view in the context of a scrapbook college. I'll juxtapose the clocks against my words, wishing that every extended sentence, every scattered string of syllables can take this moment and weave it through my biology and the hands that won't wait.
Time seems to evade me lately. I'm in a state of shock that about two and half weeks remain in the semester, and I'm going to be entering the final semester of my sophomore year. It's been incredibly strange to be so enveloped by things that I've lost a realistic grasp on time. It's certainly odd in retrospect, but I like the idea that I'm so engaged with events, knowledge, and people that I value so deeply - and who value me in return. Despite the awkward dissonance that's been plaguing me lately, I think I'm in a position to say that I'm honestly happier than I've been in a very long time. I've been assisted in realizing that the dissonance isn't ravaging my life and rendering me helpless, and that's an incredibly powerful notion. I'm thankful for the fact that I don't have to create misery just for the sake of security; something that, a few months ago, I don't think I could assert with confidence.
I'm growing up, inside and out, and I can feel it. With the passing of my grandfather, the first close death I've ever experienced, I understand more deeply the relationships and values that are pertinent to my happiness and internal being. I'm at a striking peace with myself and his death, and I think it's a sign of my maturity. Who knew that there were several levels of resilience? I feel invigorated...and that's certainly something he would have wanted from me.
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| Visceral abstraction, meet reality |
[31 Oct 2006|12:09am] |
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mood |
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contemplative |
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music |
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Sed Non Satiata // "Moi Le Premier" |
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Revisit the cues you bore into her skin, reminding her that the folds which hide the secrets are too vast. She's yearning for a covert notion which drowns in a sea of hideous weakness, and the way you scrape your nails down her back, leave handprints in her flesh, rewrite the messages in her mind only urge the discomfort, expostulate for the dissonance. Use her like a marionette, manipulate her habits and her ruminations. But most importantly, make her conscious of every move she makes, guilty every time she looks to act, and feed her impossible standards and ungodly pressures like a gold-plated needle straight into the vein. There are amphetamines and stimulants, depressants and hallucinogens, but no vaccine for this rendezvous except for her heartless yearning to be cut free from the ground and perish within the ashes with the photographs and paper trails. There's a mask for suffocation in plastic, a mask for salvation in porcelain, and reflective glass that does anything but masquerade.
Hm. I knew that things would have to be different this year, but I can't believe how much things have already changed for me. What's shaken me to the core have been my new lifestyle choices and interests and how they have completely revolutionized my perspective on life. Once again a testament to the power of music.
As of late, I've become incredibly enamored by the DIY community. This has boundlessly opened up my perspective on music, as well as changed entirely my repertoire of playlists. I'm now immersed in waves of new music and, for once in my life, I am as hungry to listen to new bands as I am to cozy up with old favorites. Further reaching than the sound, however, has been the ethos backing these bands. I never truly understood DIY and the passion, fervor, effort, and commitment it takes for a band to truly live by DIY ethics, nor did I know how thriving the community was. I can't express how deeply it's touched me and how much more meaningful everything is, and more so how it has redefined the notion of community for me. I can't remember the last time I was honestly this inspired by a movement or felt such a deep connection to the morals and ethics of a group of people. I believe there are few things as honest occurring in music right now.
Last weekend, I booked my first show alone and had my first opportunity to work with DIY bands; I hosted a stop on the Ampere/Das Oath tour, along with Daniel Striped Tiger, for Boston at Tufts. The turnout was incredible and it felt so good to be able to facilitate it and to do something for the community and the bands (photos here). I could go on about it forever, honestly. And, beyond being able to do this, I've also fully committed myself to veganism, something I would have found even more difficult to do without the inadvertent support of the DIY community's ethics. To put it simply, I'm just excited to find something to which I connect so naturally.
What's put this all into perspective most for me, though, is the History of Punk Rock class I've been taking at school. It feels like everything through which I've ever defined my life since I was young, and especially what with everything in which I am newly involved, has so much more substance and meaning. I can feel the way I look at music evolving boundlessly and am becoming much more confident as a music writer.
Things are coming together in one respect, at least. The view from here is outstanding.
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| Cobwebs in cupboards |
[15 Oct 2006|11:20pm] |
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mood |
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 sick |
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music |
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Bright Calm Blue // "Rare As Radium" |
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Who is the ghost whose molecules are blocking the entrance in my door frame? Her DNA is leaking out all the cracks in the ceiling, filling the holes where the broken floorboards have splintered. There are pieces of her walking coffin silhouette hanging like torn fabric from all the sharp corners in the structure, laying limp like lifeless bedsheets whose fibers are out from action and inaction alike. Grab them and they'll disintegrate in your hands, melting into sand straight through your fingertips. She's turning back clocks with the wind she creates, shattering mirrors with the tremors from her movement, augmenting photo albums like tearing the pages from history books every time she opens and closes her eyes. Is she there to stare down the demons or to be a net when I trip in the doorframe? Will she catch my fall?
I'm starting to experience this really strange type of dissonance on the road to self discovery. I'm spending so much time really thinking about who I am, the actions I take, and my motivations behind the things which cross my mind and those on which I follow through. The notion with which I have been struggling most is how I see myself versus how the outside world sees me. For lack of a better explanation, and in no way fishing for self-validation, I still don't see myself in a positive light. In many ways I have reconciled with myself on some of the things that have kept me from loving who I am, but in light of my physical appearance and a handful of character traits, I still am not at peace with myself. Bottom line is a mirror does not lie. What I am having the most trouble with is understanding why people are still drawn to me nevertheless. Perhaps I'm just over judging humanity and have no faith in people, thinking that everyone who passes me is bound to be judging me and that there's no chance people can see past my physical inadequacies and actually go for me. Though I consider to be pretty realistic with myself about who I am, for whatever reason, people are drawn to me, do fall for me, do want to touch me, do want to be with me. But I can't figure out why.
This has left me wishing that I could just see myself out of the eyes of someone else and know what I'm really like, how I really look and what people actually think of me. It feels as if I'm trapped inside myself not being able to examine objectively and am thus a slave to my own perception, despite how accurate or inaccurate I am. I want to be able to eradicate the dissonance and not feel disconnected from something that's such a big part of my thoughts. And I wish I was explaining this correctly, but my head is so light from being so sick that I can scarcely find the words to write, let alone piece together my own grandiose delusions in a coherent picture.
How is it possible to be at peace completely with who you are? Is it?
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